Legal and judicial system

Local authorities and Ratanakkiri provincial forestry officials yesterday visited an area in O’Yadav district where community leaders say a Vietnamese company known as “Company 72” has razed an estimated 1,000 hectares of protected forest since 2011. “The villagers complained to the authorities many times, but ...

A commune official in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district has filed a lawsuit accusing a human rights worker of incitement and disinformation after villagers the NGO staffer spoke to traveled to Phnom Penh to protest over a land dispute involving a well-known businessman Try Pheap. Pursat ...

Farmers in Kompong Chhnang province locked in a land dispute with a local businesswoman are waiting for the government to make a decision on who owns the property after student volunteers measured the area earlier this month as part of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s nationwide ...

Authorities in Ratanakkiri province arrested and charged two men with illegal logging after discovering about 4,000 pieces of luxury wood on an economic land concession held by a Vietnamese rubber company, officials said. [Deputy Provincial Forestry Administration Chief Phan Phoeun] said that although the wood ...

The commerce affairs office in northeastern Surin has reported robust trade along the Thai-Cambodian border despite unresolved Phra Viharn [Preah Vihear] temple dispute. Mr. Sitthiporn Bangkeaw from the Office of Commerce Affairs Surin revealed that even though the International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s public hearings in ...

Hundreds of Cambodian families are suing the British sugar firm Tate & Lyle in one of the U.K’s highest courts over a pair of plantations in Koh Kong province they accuse of violently forcing them off their land and out of their homes. The British law ...

In Washington today, attendees of the World Bank’s Annual Conference on Land and Poverty will hear a flattering account of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ambitious project to furnish nearly half a million Cambodian families with new private land titles just in time for July’s national ...

Huawei Technologies (Cambodia) Co agreed yesterday to withdraw its injunction against Mfone in order to pave the way for a court-appointed administrator to sell the bankrupt company’s assets and compensate its many creditors. Along with other creditors, Huawei representatives expressed concerns that the assets would ...

Philippe Laurent became secretary-general of Cambodia Airports in May 2008. He was one of six senior executives in charge of the country’s international airports in Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and the little-used facility in Sihanoukville. Mr. Laurent is now carrying out a one-man campaign against ...

The British former Chairman of a troubled biofuel firm, who is in Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prision on forgery charges, has claimed he is the victim in the case for which he is awaiting trial. Gregg Fryett was arrested in Phnom Penh on March 23rd and ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court has issued letters to 11 ethnic Tampuon villagers from the province’s Lumphat district, instructing them to prepare for a hearing over accusations of using violence on the property of rubber company DM Group. DM Group first began setting up rubber plantations in ...

The Pursat Provincial court on Friday charged Krakor district’s judicial police bureau chief for taking bribes in order to allow illegal fishing in the Tonle Sap Lake, officials said yesterday. [Hong Bunthoeun] stands accused of accepting bribes to allow illicit fishing in parts of the Tonle ...

A court official said yesterday that the complaint that led to the imprisonment of a British man and two Cambodian staff at a troubled biofuel firm was filed last year by a senior Forestry Administration official. Gregg Fryett, 45, was arrested by the Anti-Corruption Unit ...

The Ministry of Post and Telecommunications has revoked the operating licence of bankrupt phone operator Mfone, which went out of business two months ago, while more than 1,000 employees had their jobs officially terminated yesterday. The revocation of the licence and the mass dismissal of the ...

The Cambodian Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a jailed land rights activist’s appeal to be released on bail, drawing criticism from rights groups who said the whole case smacked of political interference and should be thrown out. “I am having heart, respiratory, and stomach ...

A bail hearing for imprisoned Boeung Kak lake land activist Yorm Bopha, 29, will be held this morning at the Supreme Court, her husband, Lous Sakhorn, said yesterday. Bopha was arrested on September 4 last year and charged with intentional violence over the assault ...

The British chairman of a Biofuel firm is facing up to 15 years in jail after he was arrested by the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) in Phnom Penh on Saturday and charged with forgery, a court official said yesterday. Gregg Fryett’s company, Sustainable Agro Energy, has been ...

The British chairman of an embattled agricultural investment firm was arrested Saturday by Cambodian authorities over charges of forging documents and using them in an attempt to illegally purchase thousands of hectares of land, a court prosecutor said. Greg Fryett, the main shareholder of Sustainable Agro ...

The Council of Ministers yesterday backed Prime Minister Hun Sen’s plan to rebuild the flattened homes of 49 families who were violently evicted earlier this month in Preah Sihanouk province’s Stung Hav district. In a statement on Sunday, Mr. Hun Sen dismissed the Council of Ministers’ ...

It was not the hero’s welcome that greeted Mam Sonando when more than a thousand boisterous supporters cheered his release from Prey Sar prison Friday and lifted the popular radio station owner onto their shoulders for an impromptu parade. But for the three unheralded farmers caught ...

Former employees of the failed telecommunications company MFone have been told they can expect a decision next month on their claims for more than $4 million in compensation. Former Mfone section manager Bou Kunthea said after a meeting yesterday with offic-ials from the Ministry of Social ...

Prominent businesswoman Chhin Sokountheary yesterday announced her intention to sue Phnom Penh Governor Kep Chuktema for falsifying documents saying she illegally occupied state land in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district in a bid to steal the land and develop a sports stadium on it. Sokountheary, 57 ...

Beehive radio owner Mam Sonando, along with two others appeared in the Court of Appeals Thursday to listen to their verdicts. The sentence was changed from five years to eight months imprisonment, but will be released on March 16, 2013 for having spent the same amount ...

In a bizarre twist at the Appeal Court hearing of radio station owner Man Sonando, the prosecution yesterday asked that judges drop the charge against Mr. Sonando of inciting antigovernment violence, but then asked the court to uphold another charge leading to an insurrection. Mr. ...